Di Resta philosophical after Monza

Paul di Resta says that he is keen to take the positives from an Italian Grand Prix weekend but admitted that he could have been slightly higher in the finishing order.

The British driver started from ninth place on the grid, after a five place penalty for a gearbox change and took home four points courtesy of an eighth place finish.

"Had we started fourth I think we would have been able to beat the Mercedes, because we would obviously have been further up", he said.

"But unfortunately we were on that zone where their two-stop just beat us at the end. Our race pace on the hard was quite reasonable, the Mercedes at the end just had that second pit stop, and they had bit more speed than us"

Di Resta was also surprised at the pace of Sauber's Sergio Perez, especially as the Force India driver spent a large part of the race battling with Perez's team mate Kamui Kobayashi.

"His [Perez's] car was in a different world by the looks of it – how quick he was," says Paul. "For whatever reason, it looks like he had a completely different approach to Kobayashi. I was stuck behind Kamui and was quicker than him. Whereas Perez got past the both of us and disappeared! I think one went for qualifying speed and one went for the race, and we saw what the benefits were for the race option."

Di Resta spent the Belgian Grand Prix without KERS and there was another worrying moment during the Italian Grand Prix.

"We lost KERS for one lap, but unfortunately it was the lap Mark was behind me, and he got by me. It was quite a sudden drop out, but thankfully we managed to get it back quickly, and it ran smoothly from there on"

With the long night race of Singapore up next, di Resta is keen to build on the progress shown recently, at a track where he finished sixth in 2011.

"We were definitely struggling at the beginning [in Monza], but we got stronger as the race went on. But we’re happy enough coming away with the points we’ve got. The only downside was what Perez scored so well."

"We were strong at the end, but you need to be strong throughout the race. We’ve got some work to do ahead of Singapore. We’ll take the positives from the weekend and try and analyse where we can improve."